It’s a spot Cirkunov is happy in, even though he admits life in Toronto isn’t the cheapest.

“The MMA scene in Toronto is very nice. There’s a lot of MMA gyms, there’s a lot of MMA fighters,” he said. “The lifestyle is very expensive to live in Toronto, (but) other than that, the training is amazing.”

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Cirkunov bases himself out of the city’s Xtreme Couture gym, where he’s seen a real upturn of interest following his success in the octagon.

“Lately, since I’ve been in the UFC and had pretty good success in the UFC, I’ve been attracting many different fighters that are serious about their future and about their fights,” Cirkunov said. “I teach there, I train there, I spar with guys. And lately I’ve been getting more and more guys – people from Ukraine, from Brazil. It’s been good training.”

That good training has included stints working with GLORY 185-pound champion Simon Marcus and UFC middleweight Elias Theodorou, who drop by when not working over in Canada’s other notable gym, Tristar in Montreal.

“Tristar is a very, very good, successful gym,” Cirkunov said. “They have many good, great fighters. But lately I’ve also been getting some fighters from Tristar to cross-train and come here.

“There’s a lot of good guys we have in Toronto, (but) they’re still a little bit spaced out. But lately they’ve been cross-training and coming, and we’ve been exchanging some information and training with each other.”

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Cirkunov is riding an eight-fight win streak, including a run of four straight finishes in the UFC. He made headlines earlier this year when it was revealed he was out of contract and in negotiations with the UFC. Some suggested he could become one of the latest big names to defect to Bellator, but that was never an option in Cirkunov’s mind.

“I’d been getting many different other offers, but I was not even looking at them, because I always wanted to be in the UFC,” he said. “We worked out a deal, and here I am fighting in the UFC.”

Cirkunov’s negotiations were notably different from most because he decided to represent himself rather than employ an agent. It was a decision based on finance, as he explained.

“I’m a big fight fan, and I watch a lot of things that happen, not just in the fight, but I watch other guys, what kind of managers they have,” Cirkunov said. “I pay attention to what contracts they have. I pay attention to the whole ball game.

“We as fighters, compared to many other sports, we don’t get nearly as much money, so having someone deal with all that and take a big cut – I still have to pay tax, and then giving cuts, giving to my corner guys, then provide for myself – it’s a very big amount of money I’ll be missing if I have to give a big chunk to someone else.

“We fight really, really hard for our money, and giving it away for someone to just negotiate a contract for you, I think it’s a little bit too expensive. At this point I just couldn’t afford it, and that’s why I tried to do it myself. The main reason was to save up money and try to make my own better living.”

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Despite what he descibed as a “nerve-wracking” process, it ultimately proved a successful move as Cirkunov inked a fresh deal to keep him under the UFC banner for the foreseeable future.

Now, with the admin work done, his focus is fixed on climbing to the top of the UFC’s 205-pound division, a weight class he says is underrated for non-sporting reasons.

“My honest opinion is 205 pounds is one of the toughest divisions in the sport,” he said. “The only division that’s tougher is heavyweight. If you look at all the guys: Daniel Cormier is a nice, soft-spoken guy. Alex Gustafsson is a very nice, soft-spoken guy. Anthony Johnson never trash-talks anyone, he’s a soft-spoken guy. A lot of 205ers, they don’t trash-talk so much.

“It’s a bit like having a big Great Dane. It doesn’t really bark as often, compared to some other weight classes where they’re tripping out at each other. But just because we don’t bark at each other, it doesn’t mean we don’t have a bite. Reality is, if 205 was that shallow, then step up, guys. Come to 205. If it’s that shallow, if it’s that easy, maybe come to 205. Maybe you’re gonna have better results at 205?

“I think that 205ers are very tough and just because they don’t constantly trash-talk each other, it doesn’t mean they’re not tough, doesn’t mean they’re not great fighters. It’s a very stacked division.”

Cirkunov takes on Oezdemir in Sunday’s co-main event knowing victory could well see him thrown in with the big guns. It’s something he’s been working towards and a challenge he looks forward to taking on. Just don’t expect him to start calling people out.

“If I win this fight, I’m going to be on a five-fight win streak, and I’m going to be already a top-five or maybe even top-four fighter in the world, and for me that’s just a big achievement already,” he said. “I’m just excited to see what happens. I’ve been calling out some people before, but that didn’t get me anywhere. So I’m not going to not call out people.

“I’m gonna let Mick Maynard and Dana White do their own job and whatever they think is a good fit and a good fight, I’m gonna stick with that. I don’t want to have any more issues with the UFC. I’m a company man, and I’m happy to be on this elite-level show, and I’m going to be training very, very hard for whoever’s next.”